Before you listen to this BBC podcast, I'd like to quickly tell you about some others.

My name's Andy Martin and I'm the editor of a team of podcast producers at the BBC in Northern Ireland.

It's a job I really love because we get to tell the stories that really matter to people here,

but which also resonate and apply to listeners around the world.

And because the team has such a diverse

range of skills and strengths, we've trained journalists, people who love digging through

archives, we've got drama and even comedy experts. We really can do those stories justice. So if

you like this podcast, head to BBC Sounds where you'll find plenty more fascinating stories

from all around the UK.

You're listening to a program from BBC Radio 4.

Nathaniel Ayers was a double bassist studying at Juilliard in the 70s.

He was an incredibly talented young man growing up in Cleveland.

And in fact, a lot of his teachers are still around from that time, and they distinctly recall just how talented Nathaniel was.

But they also recall a sort of edge in Nathaniel, the beginnings of the degree of mental

illness that did manifest in Nathaniel later on in his life.

I'm certain that Nathaniel was one of the very first African-American men to have studied at Juilliard,

and the amount of pressure that he must have been under led him to experience a series of psychotic episodes.

And Nathaniel was treated with shock therapy and Thorazine and handcuffs, as was the custom in that time.

And Thorazine is the equivalent of a kind of chemical lobotomy.

And so Nathaniel and his musical talents sort of disappeared for a time.

And tragically, Nathaniel ended up living homeless throughout the U.S.,

but wandered across the country, ending up living in downtown Los Angeles on Skid Row.

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